Throughout the day, people gather at a soaring maloca, or common building, designed in the traditional Juma way, to eat, tend their macaws and parrots, lounge on hammocks during the warmest hours, pound cassava, and check WhatsApp messages on their cellphones, connected to the internet by a dish antenna.

Aruká, the women’s father, is buried under the maloca.

Mandeí has been Juma chief for more than a decade now, recently stepping down in favor of her older sister, Boreá. She left behind long ago her initial adjustment to travel and leadership.

“Because we were few, people didn’t recognize us, didn’t respect us,” she said. “There had never been a woman leader before, and then people came to tell me, ‘You shouldn’t have assumed it because you’re a woman.’”

At first, that hurt, she said. Then she stopped caring.

“I adapted to seek solutions for our people,” she said.